On Jun. 1, 2025, the night's operation was bold and deceptive. Ukrainian troops infiltrated deep into Russian territory with trucks disguised as civilian freight. The targets were five Russian air bases. The operation was called "Operation Spiderweb."
That day, Ukrainian forces remotely launched small drones hidden inside the trucks. The drones charged toward Russian strategic bombers worth hundreds of billions of won. Ukraine said it successfully struck Russian air bases, inflicting $7 billion (about 9 trillion won) in damage. From more than 5,000 kilometers away, drones costing a few million won rattled the heart of the Russian military.
The Russia-Ukraine war is also called the "first drone war." Drones and software have dragged down the stature of tanks and bombers, and the battlefield has turned into an arena of technological competition.
The paradox of war accelerating technological advancement is creating an unexpected rush of large capital into Ukraine's defense-sector startups. Amid the tragedy of a war now in its fourth year, Ukraine has earned a new nickname: the Silicon Valley of the defense industry.
Shim Im-bo, honorary president of the KSEAS (former professor at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, former professor at Dong-A University's Department of Mechanical Engineering), said Ukraine was able to achieve extreme efficiency relative to expense through drones because it built solid software capabilities over more than 30 years as Europe's IT outsourcing hub. He noted that software capabilities in Korea's electronics and mechanical industries—such as algorithms and machine learning—are keywords that cannot be emphasized enough from physical AI to defense AI.
Strategic weapon amid absolute inferiority
When Russia's invasion began in 2022, Ukraine concluded it could not defeat Russia in a head-on fight and concentrated national resources on unmanned air power (drones). The Ukrainian government drew in not only private IT corporations but also gaming and maker communities, spawning hundreds of drone startups and volunteer networks.
In the early days of the war, Ukraine's drone manufacturing was at the level of modifying commercial drones. But over time, drones became a "strategic weapon."
First-person-view (FPV) drones—hobby mini-drones fitted with video cameras and explosives—proved powerful and were called "suicide drones." Long-range drones with ranges of hundreds to thousands of kilometers, as well as sea and underwater drones, were rapidly developed and attacked Russia's Black Sea Fleet and submarines.
In 2023, Ukraine included unmanned aerial companies in every brigade, and in 2024 it created the world's first organization dedicated to drone operations and tactics development, the Unmanned Systems Forces (USF).
In Nov. 2025, Ukraine's commander in chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said drones are used in about 60% of attacks on Russia.
The New York Times reported that the battlefield in 2025 looks completely different from three years ago. Fiber-optic cables are laid across roughly 750 miles (about 1,200 kilometers) of Ukraine's front-line fields, and drones chase down individual soldiers like hunters.
Moving tanks has now become extremely dangerous. A single drone costing a few hundred dollars can destroy a tank worth millions of dollars in an instant.
The wartime economy of Europe’s coding factory
Before the war, Ukraine was called the "coding factory of Europe." As of 2021, 280,000 to 300,000 highly skilled IT workers were active, carrying out complex outsourcing projects for Western corporations. The heavy concentration of software developers was one reason Ukraine could rapidly advance its drone manufacturing technology.
Existing Ukrainian IT corporations also rolled out products tailored to a wartime footing. SoftServe supported ambulance conversions and cyber defense, MacPaw distributed a security app, and Eleks built the Ministry of National Defense's medical information system. Ajax Systems developed an air-raid alert app that served as a lifeline for the public.
If traditional defense development followed a yearslong waterfall process, Ukraine shifted to an agile approach measured in weeks, developing products in short cycles and incorporating feedback.
In 2023, the Ukrainian government created a platform called Brave1 to gather ideas and innovative corporations for use in defense. The platform provides government subsidies to promising defense technology projects and includes an online procurement function that consolidates military units with manufacturers.
A pragmatism of "use it if it works, even if it's imperfect" shortened the weapons certification process to weeks. By assembling commercially available parts instead of expensive military specifications, expense was cut to about one-hundredth.
As of 2025, more than 2,000 teams are registered on Brave1, and hundreds of solutions have already been validated at the front. The range of technologies has expanded to drones, ground robots, electronic warfare, cybersecurity, and missile development.
A weekly innovation structure
As startups, front-line units, and the government formed a real-time feedback loop, electronic warfare countermeasures, autonomous flight, and swarm functions were fielded within weeks to months.
Front-line soldiers send bugs and improvement points by messenger, and developers roll out updates in a matter of days. In drone production facilities shown to the media, 3D printers ran around the clock and engineers immediately patched software on site. New payloads underwent test flights within days.
Oleksandr Yakovenko, founder and CEO of Ukraine's fourth-year drone startup TAF Industries, said operators in the trenches are directly linked with the company's lab engineers.
Every day, front-line personnel report why they failed in electronic warfare, how they survived, which attacks succeeded, and which attempts failed, and the company immediately reflects that feedback. The company alone sent 370,000 FPVs to front-line units in 2024.
[Interview] Young entrepreneur who made drones a game changer on the battlefield, Oleksandr Yakovenko, CEO of TAF Industries
In the process, civil technology rapidly transferred into defense in an accelerated "civil-military fusion." In July, Ukraine also unveiled a plan to test foreign defense corporations' new weapons at the front—"Test it in Ukraine." Corporations send new weapons to Ukraine, Ukrainian troops use the products, and then provide feedback to the corporations.
As of 2024, about 2.2 million drones of all types, including more than 1 million FPVs, were produced in Ukraine. The 2025 production target reached 4 million units. That figure far exceeds Europe's total drone output.
A weakness of Ukraine's drone industry is supply chain risk. It relies on China for a significant share of key components such as motors, batteries, and communications modules. While production capacity itself has expanded, disruptions in parts supply can immediately halt mass production.
A flood of big money
As Ukraine's drone operations striking Moscow, rear Russian air bases, and Black Sea Fleet bases were revealed one after another, Western attention shifted to Ukraine's defense industry. Ukraine began to be dubbed a "drone superpower" and the "Silicon Valley of the defense industry."
In particular, capital inflows into Ukraine's defense startups are increasing. It is a sign that Ukraine's defense startups are moving beyond reliance on wartime subsidies and donations and building self-sustaining fundraising capabilities.
According to preliminary figures from Brave1, more than 50 Ukrainian defense-tech startups secured over $105 million in combined venture and angel investment in 2025.
Swarmer ($15 million), Tencore ($3.74 million), and Dropla ($2.75 million) are notable examples. European defense startups raised a total of about $200 million this year, much of which went to Ukrainian startups.
U.S.-based MITS Capital and Green Flag Ventures set up local bases in Ukraine and expanded investment. It became known that former Google CEO Eric Schmidt invested in Ukrainian drone startups through the D3 fund.
Germany's Rheinmetall established a joint venture with Ukraine's state-owned defense corporation in 2024 and is building four plants locally. The plants will rapidly repair foreign equipment and return it to the front. The plan also calls for producing armored vehicles down the line.
Türkiye's Baykar built a large drone factory near Kyiv. Baykar provides airframe manufacturing technology, and Ukraine supplies its own aircraft engine technology.
U.S. company Northrop Grumman signed a joint production agreement for medium-caliber ammunition, and KNDS, a French-German joint venture, established KNDS Ukraine.
Anna Gvozdiar, Vice Minister at Ukraine's Ministry of National Defense, said at KIEF (Kyiv International Economic Forum) 2025 that Ukraine has emerged as the driving force of transformation in the global defense industry, emphasizing that the world is paying attention to systems and experiences that allow even small manufacturers to make a real difference at the front.
Since 2023, Ukraine has also held the International Defense Industries Forum to promote defense technology. This year's forum drew about 2,000 participants from more than 20 countries.
Bruegel, a European think tank, forecast in a report that Ukraine will establish itself as Europe's arsenal after the war, thanks to low production expense, a skilled technical workforce, and the vast troves of combat data accumulated in real combat.
United24 Media said that Ukraine's defense startups have a small share compared with Western defense startups but have a clear differentiator: they are "battle-proven." It analyzed that this sets them apart from Western startups that raise funds on "concept" alone.
+Plus Point
Ukraine rewrote the textbook of modern warfare, but the national finances are effectively at the limit. The war has entered its fourth year, and most U.S. financial support has been cut off.
On Dec. 19, the European Union (EU) agreed to provide interest-free loans totaling €90 billion (about 156 trillion won) to Ukraine in 2026–2027. The concern is that if Ukraine's fiscal crisis is left unaddressed, Russia's threat could spread across Europe.
Recently, Russia's drone counterattacks have been formidable. At night, it repeatedly sends tens to hundreds of drones simultaneously to exhaust Ukraine's air-defense radars.
In particular, this year Russia has deployed large numbers of fiber-cable drones that are scarcely affected by jamming, striking Ukraine's supply routes, rear vehicles, and armored vehicles with low-altitude precision. As the drone flies, a thin fiber-optic cable unreels to maintain a physical link with the controller.
The United States is conducting talks with Russia and Ukraine for a deal to end the war. On Dec. 24, Ukraine discussed with the United States a peace plan to freeze the current Russia-Ukraine front line and open negotiations to establish a demilitarized zone (DMZ).